


The Anatomy Of A Human Rose

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, F/M, I am lame, The Author Regrets Nothing, jily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:10:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3543887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She pulls your soul out of your mouth and props it up next to you, like a paper doll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Anatomy Of A Human Rose

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even sorry 
> 
> title from my brain.

You see her at the bus stop.

 

It is something about why way she holds herself, the way she's leaning against the glass of the shelter in the light rain. Her foot is up against the glass and she isn’t wearing headphones, just standing there, waiting. The cigarette is clutched in her savage hands, they are the hands of a war goddess; endless and thin, like the stems of flowers. Her nails are red and they leap out at you through the grey day. She blows smoke from her lips and it floats up to the sky, almost reluctant to leave her.

 

You feel your heart close up, because if you don’t take a photo of her you will surely cease to exist. It is not possible for you to go on without it, without those cruel fingers and blue-grey smoke to be captured and held inside paper.

 

“Do you normally stare at people this long, or am I the exception?” her voice is almost raw, and something roots in your stomach.

 

“I want to take photographs of you” the words fall out involuntarily, Remus always said you could never do subtle.  

 

She raises her eyebrows and looks at you for a minute, like she is trying to peel back your skin and reach into your muscles, drag out your soul, kicking and screaming, into the light.

 

“Alright then.”

 

You catch her bus even though it’s nowhere near where you need to be, purely so you can hear her snort as you sit down next to her.

 

“You sure are eager, aren’t you?”

 

“Part of the charm”

 

She smirks.

 

(Goddesses are real and one is taping her foot next to you)

 

_///_

You meet her at the coffee shop on the corner of Isles, because the last thing you need is Sirius showing up and taking the piss out of you for years.

 

She turns up and is smoking again, falling into the chair across from you like its nothing, when really all the planets have shifted and the Milky Way has combusted. 

 

“So you take pictures” she starts, “And now you want to take some of me, a girl you saw one time catching a bus.”

 

“Basically.”

 

“Well then here are the rules” she leans forward without hesitation, like she knew what you were going to say the minute she arrived, “ No butt, tits, frontal region or- for that matter- side tit is allowed at all in any form, I get to pick the place and you pay for this drink” she points to the orange juice next to her.

 

“Seems doable, although, what if there is accidental side tit?” you ask, because you are a smartass and also very stupid.

 

“Then I sneak into your house , pull out your intestines and hang you with them in front of your weeping mother while I drink this juice you paid for and laugh very loudly.”

 

 

(God you are so fucked, so very, very fucked)

 

_///_

“May I ask why we are in a library?” you whisper, because, well, it _is_ a library and the lady behind the desk a had glared at you when you walked in.

 

“Because I get to pick the place” she hisses back, jumping on a table and looking at you like she waiting for something.

 

You stare back, because her arms look so freckled in this light like a thousand tiny suns all crammed together fighting to be the brightest against pale skin that is lit by the electricity under her nerves and your heart is thumping so loud but you can almost see glory sown into her skin _you can almost see-_

 

“How does this work, exactly?”

 

You bring you camera up and push the shutter.

 

“Like that”

 

(She gives you the finger, so you take a photo of that too.)

 

_///_

You go to a book store, and she hides her face behind a book so you can only see her eyes, small green galaxies hidden by pale lashes and you take the picture while the owner’ s cat spins its tail around your legs. She climbs on the roof of your car, raises her hands and screams all of the swear words you’ve ever heard into the air, you join in and the picture is wobbly because you are shouting so loudly, the lens tilted up so she looks like the queen of the cracked asphalt, or king of all matter.

 

You take photos of her on the street when she laughs, or when she is buying chocolate from the twelve year old school kid. You take photos of her mouth and her eyelids and her hair, which could probably take over the world if it really tried. You take photos of her while she reads or when she's chewing on her pen, photo after photo of her hooked hands, because they could reach into the centre of the earth and pull out the answer to why all humans are here if she would just stop wearing so many bloody heavy rings.

 

You make a pact with her, to see who can go the longest without smoking, because you really need to get that shit under control, she annoys you while you write an email to your Mother, who is always worried you are not eating enough. You watch a guy drive past in a van and yell “NICE RACK” out the window to which she raises her middle finger and screams “SUCK MY DICK” so loudly the pavement shakes.

 

She opens her mouth slightly when she looks at the camera, head pointed up while her eyes look down, a finger pulling on her lower lip and her lashes look like honey is the soft sunlight.

 

(This is how you know there is something more important than this world out there, because surely she is intend for more than your shitty camera, surely)

 

_///_

(She sleeps with her windows open because she doesn’t ever want to miss out on anything, her flatmate basically lives with her boyfriend’ s so she covers the wall in posters and throws chips at the TV when someone she likes on her favourite TV show dies.)

 

You are sitting on somebody’ s random porch one night, because Sirius was throwing a party and Remus was annoyed about his exam mark and really you just needed to be somewhere that was quiet with a reasonable amount of vodka.

 

“You could get them published, you know” she is saying, her hands look almost empty without the customary cigarette, but the bet is still on and you are determined to win.   

 

“Where? Who would even want my freaking pictures of trees and you?” you say back, titling you head up and breathing cold air through your mouth.

 

“I don’t bloody know, do I? Maybe, ‘Cosmopolitan’ or something”

 

You laugh, “How would you know what goes into ‘Cosmopolitan’?”

 

“My sister used to order them”

 

You close your eyes, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

 

“Sometimes I almost forget.”

 

She says this so quietly you almost miss it, but when it processes in our slightly drunk brain you snap your head up, staring into eyes that refuse to meet yours.

 

“Why do you say that?”    

 

 

“Why would your sister forget about you?”

 

“God, has anyone ever told you are incredibly nosy?” she asks, fiddling with her nails.

 

“Part of the charm.”

 

She breathes in like she is trying to fill herself up, as if she is trying to stop herself from caving into her own lungs.

 

“My sister just stopped loving me, in the end.” This is a whisper, so quiet you are not sure if it is real or not. You sit there, because you do not know how to handle the ache in her voice, the heaviness that weighs on her tongue.

 

“How could anyone stop loving you?” you think aloud, and her head turns to you so abruptly you hear the crack of her neck across the night, she looks at you and looks at you and you can feel your skin peeling off again, and this time she pulls your soul out whole and props him up next to you, like a paper doll.

 

“You’re right. I'm fabulous” she says, looking you dead in the eye. You smirk and hand her the bottle.

 

(She takes it)

 

_///_

She loses the bet, because you find her smoking in the bathroom a few weeks later, you lord it over her until she punches you on the arm and shoves a cigarette right up your nose. You bring in your photos and show them to the Art Professor at Remus’s fancy school and he gives you his card and tells you to ‘call him sometime’. She grins so wide her face opens and the sun falls out when you tell her.

 

You find yourself cracking you spine open sometimes, just so she can slip in and fill every crevice, all under your ribs and tissue and heart because you are so boring and she is everything. You want her bones to lie next to yours for the rest of time, want to take photos of the human version of a rose until your veins dry up and slide out of your mouth.

 

(You want the freckle suns and glory skin for the rest of the universe)

 

_///_

Four months later, you are standing in front of the gallery surrounded by her, her face her smile her hands her eyes her shoulder her dangerous fingernails her kneecaps her feet her twisted laugh her strong jaw.

 

All you can think about is that first day at the bus stop when it rained and you saw a girl with long hands and strong bones leaning against the glass of a bus shelter and turning it platinum.

 

( _The Anatomy of a Human Rose_ is the most critically acclaimed photography show of the year, and the one with the girl who has fire on her head biting on the lip of the boy with mussed hair and lopsided glasses will be printed on postcards and spray painted on walls with the heading: _THIS IS WHY WE HAVE THE UNIVERSE.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
